MICHAEL Bentwood battled against flu, a dodgy gearbox and success ballast at the penultimate meeting of the Green Flag British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton.

The 26-year-old from Hale was hoping to build on the success of his 3rd place finish at Brands Hatch in the previous meeting, but 18kgs of ballast meant Michael struggled for pace all weekend.

“We were the heaviest Vauxhall out there,” says Michael, “which meant the car over-worked its tyres in qualifying, in the 1st race and on top of that the new engine felt like it couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.”

Bentwood qualified the VX Racing Junior Astra in 15th place for the first race of the day, but felt the time represented a good performance, “we went into qualifying without a proper set-up and we were only 2 places behind Huff, who won the last race,” commented Michael, “and when you consider the gearbox trouble we had in practice, 15th wasn't too bad.”

However, it wasn’t just mechanical problems that slowed Bentwood as he picked up a dose of the flu in the days preceding the meeting, “You’ve got to be at 100% fitness to compete at this level, and I just felt groggy all weekend, which just means you’re not at you’re best.”

In the races Michael tried to make the best of the situation, and his reputation for making strong starts, but to no avail, “the races went from bad to worse,” says Michael.

“In the first race I made contact with Carl Breeze and it gave me a tire explosion and sent me off into the barriers at Riches, but who cares? It was for 15th place!”

“That meant we had to start the 2nd race from the back,” says Bentwood. “In the third race I made a good start, but couldn’t stay with them.  The new engine was really tight and it was too little too late"

“The weekend was a real disappointment for everyone,” says Michael. “Everything was against us and it was a very tough weekend, but we’ll lose the weight for the last meeting at Donington Park and we’ll be looking for a good result to finish the season.”